


Wing(s)

by Prince_Hamlet



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Early season 3, Gen, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Devil Reveal, Season/Series 03, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2019-10-13 19:19:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17493737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prince_Hamlet/pseuds/Prince_Hamlet
Summary: Chloe should have seen he was hurting. He should have been able to talk to her about it.Instead, she finds out about Lucifer's extreme self-harm methods the hard way.





	1. Part 1: Recognizing Self-Injuring

The wings were back. He could tell without looking now, without even getting up from bed. The barest tingle, the uncomfortable feeling of them pressing on his back, even when hidden. Too subtle to notice if he hadn’t gotten so attuned to it. 

It was going to be one of those mornings then. 

He dragged himself out of bed, feeling the weight of those weightless, wretched things slowing him. He buzzed down to security on the intercom to be sure he wouldn’t be disturbed, sent a short text to Chloe, and ignored his phone’s angry buzzing with her response. She might be mad, but he couldn’t very well go into work like this.

He brought Maze’s demon blade into the bathroom and got to work.

 

~*~*~*~

 

“Can you believe this?” Chloe ranted, “I know I should be used to Lucifer flaking on me, but we’re so close to a breakthrough on this case. I told him I would need him today.” She dropped her phone on her desk.

“What did he say?” Dan picked up the phone to look at the texts.

“Just ‘not feeling well, won’t be in,’” she sighed.

“So?”

“Come on, Dan, have you ever seen Lucifer sick? I don’t think he’s ever even gotten a cold. He’s not sick, he’s hungover. That, or just blowing me off to go do whatever he does when he usually blows me off.” 

Dan frowned. “Alright, but have you ever seen him hungover?”

Chloe had to think about it. For as much as he drank... “No. At least, not enough to stop him from coming in.”

“And look at this text.” He turned the phone around. “No emojis, no proper capitalization, no punctuation.” Chloe just raised an eyebrow. “I once had to sit through a twenty minute lecture about how important it is to use proper grammar in texts.”

“So you’re saying you think he’s actually not feeling well?”

“He seemed pretty excited about the case yesterday. I don’t see why he’d bail on you now.”

“Well, he’s not answering my calls or texts.” Chloe took her phone back and considered. “Maybe I’ll check on him at Lux. If he’s just hungover maybe I can get him up.”

“Good luck with that. I don’t think anyone can get Lucifer to do something he doesn’t want to. Or stop him from doing something once he’s set his mind to it.” 

Chloe grabbed her keys and walked to her car. 

 

~*~*~*~

 

One down, one to go. The mangled wing laid on the bathroom tiles as blood dripped down his back and into his large bathtub. Lucifer breathed deep and grit his teeth against the pain. Soon it would start the healing process and he could move on to the next wing without losing too much blood. He set down the demon blade and sat back on his heels, trying to keep his back still.

Lucifer watched as his blood sluggishly made its way down the bathtub drain, leaving a sulfuric scent in the air. The smell was starting to make him feel dizzy. 

Really dizzy, actually.

It wasn’t usually this strong. As he put a hand on his lower back he realized why. He was still bleeding. The flow hadn’t even slowed. He was losing a lot more blood than usual, as if his healing abilities were hindered. He grabbed the bathtub edge as a wave of vertigo threatened to knock him over. 

Maybe he had opened this particular wound too many times for it to heal. Maybe his father was punishing him for not accepting his “gift.” Or maybe—

“Lucifer?” 

 

~*~*~*~

 

Chloe stood in the empty living room. No response. She should just accept Lucifer had ditched her and give up but... something about what Dan has said had put her on edge. The whole apartment gave her a sense of unease. 

She checked Lucifer’s bedroom, but it was also empty. So, not hungover. She was about to leave when something on the bar buzzed. Lucifer’s phone. Just going by the lock screen, he hadn’t opened any of her texts, like he’d had to send the text in a hurry and then ditch his phone. 

Chloe was struck by the sudden fear that someone had come after Lucifer. Lord knows he had enemies, any one of them could’ve kidnapped him or hurt him or worse. 

She was about to text Linda or Dan or even Amenadiel to see if they knew anything when she heard something. From deeper in the apartment, a strangled sound like someone in pain. 

“Lucifer?” She crept down the hall. The bathroom door was closed. She heard another noise from behind it, a pained grunt. “Lucifer? Are you ok?” No response. She tried the door but it was locked. There was a weird smell too, like burnt pennies. “Lucifer I know you’re in there. I’m not mad, I just want to make sure you’re ok.”

She could swear she heard him hiss in a breath. “Detective you really do have the worst timing.” He definitely sounded like he was in pain. Someone must be in there, threatening him. “Don’t worry about me, just go.”

“No, I want to be sure. Open the door.” Chloe drew her gun, pointed at the ground and ready.

“I can’t do that Detective. I’ll be fine if you just leave.” 

“So you’re not fine now?”

“Detective—“

“You don’t lie Lucifer, so just say ‘I’m not hurt’ and I’ll leave.”

“... I can’t.”

“That’s what I thought.” Chloe grabbed the doorknob and twisted until the lock popped. She threw it open and entered, gun up, looking to aim at the bastard that hurt Lucifer.

Instead, she found a scene she had trouble comprehending. Lucifer was sitting on the edge of his huge bathtub, wearing only sweatpants. His arms were covered up the the elbow in blood, and his feet and sweatpants were covered up the knee. He looked in pain, but like he was trying to hide it with his charming smile. On the floor was a twisted version of those fake wings he got so pissed about ages ago. Only these were stained pink with bloody smears. When she looked back to Lucifer she saw the other wing behind his back, half folded in like he was hiding it.

“Are you going to shoot me?” Lucifer said incredulously. “I thought you said you weren’t mad.”

She holstered her gun quickly. “I’m not, I thought... Lucifer who did this to you? Did you see their face?” She approached carefully, trying to figure out where all the blood came from. He didn’t have any visible wounds on his legs, arms, or torso, but his arms were crossed so he could be hiding it. 

“No one did this to me.” He wasn’t making eye contact. Chloe spotted Maze’s knife sitting on the edge of the bath, bloodstained. It was one of her special knives too, the ones she always had on her. She wouldn’t give them to anyone. Except Lucifer. Chloe looked between the knife, the discarded wing, and Lucifer with dawning horror. He still wasn’t making eye contact, and he tried to hunch over, but even that small movement made him wince. She remembered the scars on his back. What he said when she first saw them. That those were from cutting his wings off.

“No...” Chloe gently laid a hand on his shoulder and turned him so she could look at his back. On one side was the result of a gruesome hack job, raw and smeared with blood. On the other, a long white feathered wing merged seamlessly with his skin. As she watched it fluttered and spread a bit, the muscles in his back and shoulder flexing with the movement. 

Alright, so maybe Lucifer hadn’t been lying about being the devil. She put that thought away to deal with later. For right now, Lucifer was hurt and she had to fix it.

“You did this to yourself?” 

“You’re taking this ‘actually the devil’ thing rather better than I expected.”

“Lucifer.”

He sighed. “Yes, I did this to myself. Dear old dad thought it would be funny to play a little joke on me a few weeks ago and gave me my wings back. I can’t let him control me like that, so I cut them off. The bloody things just keep growing back.”

Chloe stopped her examination of his back. “‘Keep growing back’? You mean you’ve done this more than once?”

“Yes, quite a few times actually. I’ve lost count at this point.”

Ok, so Lucifer regularly self-harms, no, self-mutilates. She’ll deal with that later.

“We need to get you to a hospital.” Chloe crosseed to his other side to start hooking her arm under his, but he pulled out of her grasp.

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re hurt!”

“I know that, but I can heal perfectly fine on my own, thank you. How do you think you’ve gone this long without noticing?” 

“So there’s just nothing I can do?”

“Well there is, actually. I’m not finished here so I need you to either leave or help.”  
He held out a hand and it took Chloe a moment to realized he was asking for the blade beside her. She snatched it up and crossed the room.

“I’m not going to help you hurt yourself!”

“I didn’t expect you to, now give me the knife, Detective.”

“No, Lucifer, this ends here.”

“Give me the blade, Chloe.” She noticed how heavily he was leaning on the tub’s edge, how much blood he’d lost. She took a gamble and held out the knife, still on the other side of the room.

“Fine. Come get it.”

He shot her a withering look and tentatively stood. Almost immediately he had to grab the counter and go to his knees to stop himself from falling over.

“You can barely stand, Lucifer. This needs to stop.”

“No,” he grimaced. “You need to leave.”

“I’m not going to leave you here!” Chloe set the knife on the far corner of the counter and helped Lucifer back up onto the edge of the tub.

“You don’t understand. You… make me vulnerable. Quite literally. As in, when you’re around I can be hurt by normal weapons and my healing process is slowed.” 

Lucifer watched her face as she processed this. 

“So I’m just supposed to leave you like this?” She whispered.

“Yes.”

“But—“

“I said leave!” Lucifer snapped, leveraging the strength to stand and loom over her, wing spread. Chloe backed away, hands up. 

“Ok. Ok. But you can’t stop me from helping you.”

And then she left. He could feel guilty about that later. For now—

Where the hell was the knife?

 

~*~*~*~

 

Chloe turned the knife over in her hands as she stepped outside Lux to make a call. 

“Hello?”

“Amenadiel, I need your help.”

“Of course, Chloe, with what?”

“Your brother. I walked in to check on him and I found him… hurting himself. He cut off one of his wings.”

“Oh. How are you taking it?”

“Well I am pretty upset that I didn’t notice he was hurting, but—“

“No, I mean, that he’s the devil.”

“I’m- I’ll deal with that later. Didn’t you hear me? He’s hurting himself, Amenadiel.”

Chloe heard the crackle of a sigh. “I know.”

“You- you know? And you didn’t do anything about it?”

“Chloe—“

“He’s your brother! You just let him do that to himself, over and over…” Chloe took a deep, shuddering breath and re-centered. “Who else knows? I need someone to make sure he doesn’t cut off the other wing while he heals.”

“Linda knows.”

“Linda knows? Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Alright. I’ll call her then.”

“Chloe, don’t get your hopes up. Once Lucifer gets an idea in his head—“

“Save it.” She hit the hang up button with a little more force than necessary and called Linda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was watching Season 3 i just thought they really could've done more about Lucifer regularly and gruesomely self-harming. I couldn't find a fic that scratched that particular itch so I wrote one, featuring Chloe "compartmentalization" Decker.
> 
> I may leave this as a one-shot but I might also write one or more chapters about the fall-out, time will tell.
> 
> As always, smash that mf comment button if i made you sad, or come yell at me at prince-hamlet.tumblr.com


	2. Part 2: Communicating about Self-Injuring

The conversation with Linda went about the same as the one with Amenadiel. But, she didn’t really argue when Chloe asked her to just watch Lucifer to make sure he healed alright. Chloe tried to go about the rest of her day like normal, but she just kept seeing… the blood. The tattered skin of his back. The twisted wing covered in red handprints.

She had to go home to change. Her clothes were bloody from where she’d helped him up. While she was home, she cleaned the knife and put it in the small safe under her bed. Maze wouldn’t be home for another couple of weeks or so, so it would just have to stay there for now. 

Chloe got a text after she went back to work, while she was distractedly trying to sort out some paperwork. 

“I had no idea it was like this :(,” from Linda. “I thought it was more… symbolic.”

“And that makes it fine??” Chloe almost shot back. She typed the words and stared at them for a few minutes before deleting them. “It’s ok. We’ll figure it out,” she sent instead.

She went home early. Made a nice dinner with Trixie. Tried not to think about knives or blood. 

It was two days before she saw Lucifer again. Linda checked in on him periodically. Apparently he’d healed quickly, just felt “weird” about going back to work. Chloe kept texting him about how she needed him on a case, just like she normally would. That’s what most of the sites said to do. Just be normal.

He showed up in the middle of the afternoon looking the same as always. Crisp suit, coiffed hair, sleazy smirk. He slunk into the room that overlooked the interrogation room while Chloe was watching Dan talk to a witness. 

Just be normal.

“Feeling better?” Chloe said casually. Lucifer huffed a laugh.

“Yes. I promise I’m much hardier when you’re not around.” The subtle tension in his shoulders dropped. She should probably let it be. 

But she had to be sure.

She turned away from the one way window and toward him. “Lucifer, I’d like to see your wing.”

“I beg your pardon?” he looked shocked, like she’d just asked him to strip naked. Well maybe not quite like that, because it was more shock and horror than shock and excitement. 

“I want to be sure that you didn’t… didn’t do anything to it. I just want to make sure you’re ok.”

He shifted uncomfortably, glancing around the room like he would find an excuse not to somewhere in scuffed plaster or fluorescent lights.

“Lucifer.”

He wouldn’t make eye contact. Just rolled his shoulders, hunched over. A single, perfect wing unfurled from his back. He kept it close to his back, like he was ashamed of it. He had that vulnerable look on his face, like the first time she’d seen his scars. His self-harm scars.

Dammit.

The wing itself was… beautiful. Ivory feathers as long as her arm hung from the arc of it and nearly brushed the ground. Not glowing like christmas lights but like it was pearlescent, a quality that made it as mesmerizing as it was hard to really make out. 

She didn’t linger. Just nodded and turned back to the interrogation going on in the other room. 

“Thank you. I just wanted to check.”

Lucifer was uncharacteristically quiet. She felt the displacement of air as he folded the wing back away. He stood next to her, watching Dan talk to the witness with much less of his usual mocking.

“I must say, detective, you’re taking this… rather well.”

“I’m just trying to be supportive of you. I value our friendship, and I want you to know that this doesn’t change anything, and I’m here to talk if you’re ready to.”

“Talk about— no, not that, I mean about my being actually the devil.”

“Oh. That.” She… really hadn’t thought about it much. Or, hadn’t let herself think about it. There were more important things right now. “Lucifer I— I just want to make sure you’re ok. Ok?”

“Well, yes, but—“

“Hey I was thinking we could do a game night tonight. We haven’t done one in a while.” Chloe looked at Lucifer, his face unreadable.

“...Sure, detective. That would be lovely.”

And then Dan walked in and things were… normal. Lucifer made fun of his technique, went in and got some actual information from the witness, and then they were off. Side by side, just like normal.

Everything was normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a comment on this recently and it's been on my mind. I suddenly have some more free time, so.
> 
> I didn't spend a lot of time on this chapter but I wanted to get it off my chest, so it's a little shorter.
> 
> Chapter titles are taken from the wiki-how article: "How to Help Someone Who Self Injures (With Pictures)" because you know that's what she's been reading.
> 
> I've got a vague plan for the direction of this fic and a more specific one for the next chapter, so stay tuned. 
> 
> As always, leave a comment if I made u sad or yell at me at prince-hamlet.tumblr.com


	3. Part 1.2: Trust Your Instincts

In all the time he’d known her, Lucifer had spent… a lot of time imagining how Chloe would react when she finally believed him. Would she be horrified, like Linda? Reverent, like Malcolm? Or something else entirely? Betrayed, or sad, or angry? Would she still want to know him? 

But he never imagined this, this… nothing. Just business as usual, eating a lasagna across from him at her dinner table talking to Trixie about her day. Truly puzzling.

He kept shifting in his seat. It was hard to be comfortable with that… thing on his back. Having just one was worse. The asymmetrical feeling made the already unpleasant sensation so much more irritating.

The longer he had it, the harder it was the think of anything else.

“Lucifer?” Trixie asked, shaking him from his thoughts. Her and Chloe were looking at him expectantly.

“Hm?”

“Um, can I paint your nails?”

Lucifer smiled at her. “Of course.”

“After we do the dishes,” Chloe warned. She got up and started clearing away the dishes, followed by Trixie. Lucifer obediently joined them. 

All the while, he was uncomfortably aware of the anchor dragging him down by the shoulder blade.

~*~*~*~

Chloe released Lucifer and Trixie a little early from dish duty so they could set up the nail painting and pick the games they wanted to play. Trixie spent ten minutes trying to pick the best color, and settled on a sparkly pink. She painted Lucifer’s nails with all the seriousness a little girl could muster. The required stillness made Lucifer’s fidgeting even more obvious. 

The articles Chloe had read focused more on identifying if your friend self-harmed than what to do if you saw it happen. To be honest, she’d skimmed those parts at first. But, something had made her go back.

“Think about whether your friend may be trying to:  
Manage or reduce severe anxiety and distress and provide an immediate sense of relief.”

He’d looked so distracted during dinner. He didn’t even notice when Trixie asked to paint his nails the first time, just pushing a single scrap of noodle around his plate like it had personally wronged him.

“Have a sense of control over their body, feelings, or life, particularly if they are a perfectionist.”

Chloe finished drying dishes and sat with Lucifer and Trixie. Lucifer was praising Trixie’s work, showing off his sparkly nails. 

“Nice job, kiddo,” Chloe said. She’d actually done a really good job, and Lucifer’s preening clearly made her happy. He was already talking about planning an outfit around the color.

Those few times that Chloe had seen Lucifer get upset, really upset, to the point where he’d rant, incoherent, about angels and plots and things she thought were just part of his delusions, it usually centered around his dad. Around feeling like he was still being manipulated somehow. Which makes sense if— since his dad is… literally God.

How many times had she just dismissed his legitimate concerns out of hand?

“Provide a distraction from painful emotions through feeling physical pain.”

“Right, well, shall we play, detective?” Lucifer held up a box of uno cards. As Chloe shuffled the deck, she watched Lucifer tap the pads of his fingers on his knees, then stop, then rub his palms into his legs. Had he always been this twitchy? Had she never noticed?

She dealt the cards. Trixie had to explain the game to him, and once they got started, Lucifer got his ass summarily handed to him. He pouted and playfully jeered, as usual, but seemed much more at ease.

“Feel anything at all. Sometimes, self-injurers feel so emotionally empty and numb that seeing their own blood helps them feel alive.”

They got in an argument about rules. They usually did. As usual, Lucifer pulled the rules sheet out of the box to attempt to prove himself right. He got a paper cut. He complained like the drama queen he was, but Chloe watched him wipe his finger on his grey sweatpants, making a little rust red stain. They were the same kind of sweats he was wearing when…

But these were obviously new, still with creases down the sides from being folded and packaged. How many spare pairs did he have, waiting to be soaked through?

“Have physical signs and scars to show for their emotional pain.”

Way back when she first saw the scars, in almost the same sentence, he blamed them on his father and admitted to creating them himself. Did he have to have marks to prove to himself that something bad happened to him?

“Punish themselves for their perceived faults.”

That… that was the one that made Chloe go back and reread the sections on identifying self harming behavior. It just… made sense. More than all the others.

Chloe wanted to reach out to him as they played Uno. Put a hand over the blood spot on his sweats and let him know he didn’t have to… didn’t have to be alone. Didn’t have to prove something. Didn’t have to hurt. But how the hell do you even start a conversation like that? And he knew now that he could talk to her. He had to.

Right?

She didn’t reach out. Just played her wild card and laughed at Trixie and Lucifer’s exaggerated groans.

~*~*~*~

After losing a couple rounds, Lucifer suggested they move on to a movie. Chloe made popcorn and Trixie put in Finding Nemo.

Ridiculous little movie, really. Trixie seemed to like it, but it was just absurd. The idea that a father, one who cast out his son at that, would then go on some perilous journey to get him back. It just didn’t make sense. 

Lucifer stuffed his face with popcorn and scoffed at the emotional scenes.

Chloe kept looking at him. She was trying to be subtle, but every time he threw popcorn at the screen she winced. And it wasn’t her normal “pick that up” wince, he knew that one too well. She didn’t even bother him about the popcorn. He picked them up anyway, but still. It was weird. Trixie fell asleep on his arm before the movie ended. He had to carry her to bed, Chloe a couple steps behind him. She leaned in the doorframe as he put Trixie in bed.

“Hey, Lucifer. Do you want to… maybe spend the night?”

“My, my, detective, is that an invitation?” he whispered, wiggling his eyebrows more out of habit than anything else.

She rolled her eyes. “I just mean it’s getting late. You can just sleep on the couch if you want.”

Maybe he should’ve jumped at the chance. But something about it just felt so artificial. 

“Well, wish I could, but I’ve got to plan an event at Lux early tomorrow.”

For a second, Chloe looked like she was going to argue. But she just brushed some hair away from her face and nodded.

“Yeah. Ok.”

When Lucifer got home, he went right to his personal bar to pour himself a drink. Chloe was obviously concerned about him. Maybe he should… try and live with the wings. Just for a bit, at least. Until she got off his back.

He’d just about made up his mind when he dug around one of his drawers for a corkscrew and cut his finger on something. He yanked his hand back and shook his hand. The same one he’d gotten a papercut on too! Truly being somewhat mortal tested his patience. 

Except, wait, he shouldn’t be somewhat mortal right now. 

He carefully reached into the drawer and pulled out Maze’s other demon blade. He stared at it reflecting the low light of the city around his apartment. 

...He shouldn’t. 

Chloe would be mad. 

The leather grip made his hands itch. There was a spot of blood on the tip from where he’d pricked his finger. 

And he couldn’t stop feeling it on his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clarify, the chapter titles are based on sections of a wikihow article (as are the quotes used in this chapter) and im not being very sequential. might change the chapter titles a bit.
> 
> Any of yall know the musical Spring Awakening? I was just in a production of it, and the thing that kills me is that there were so many times that someone almost stopped Moritz. Frau Gabor tried to comfort him, Ilse tried to distract him. It was just, not enough. Maybe they didn't believe he's really do it or maybe they just didn't know what to do. Either way, no matter how many times that play gets put on, it's just not quite enough, you know?
> 
> Anyway, I wouldn't expect updates to come this quick or regular, sorry gamers, I'm a busy bitch.
> 
> Comments fuel me, pls smash that mf comment button if I made you sad or come yell at me at prince-hamlet.tumblr.com
> 
> And thanks to everyone who commented on the first chapter and asked for more, yall made this happen.


	4. 1.3: Watch for Signs of Self-Injury

Chloe was worried, understandably, after Lucifer went home. She almost didn’t expect him to show up to the crime scene, but he walked through the apartment’s door a little after she did, weaving his way through the forensics team to where she was standing at the edge of the cozy living room. He even looked pretty happy, two coffees in hand. He looked… lighter, somehow. And he had actually planned his outfit around the nail polish, a pink shimmery tie under a dark magenta suit jacket. It was kinda adorable. He sidled up to Chloe and handed her one of the coffees. She took it gratefully. 

“I take it your meeting went well then?” 

“Hm? Oh, yes, that. Yes it’s the boring part of parties but someone has to do it. I take it we’re no longer helping Daniel on his case?”

“No, he said he was feeling pretty confident after the information we got yesterday so I took this case when it came in.” Chloe gestured to the body on the floor with her free hand. The woman, late 20s, lay on the floor, glassy blue eyes watching the ceiling. Her legs were tangled up in a drapey red dress almost the same color as the bloodstained carpet beneath her. “Meet Halley Bolide, 27. She was a dance instructor at the St. Jude Community Center, until last night when she was quite literally stabbed in the back.”

Ella appeared on Lucifer’s left and immediately mock-fainted into his arms, making him scramble to not drop her or his coffee. “The drama, the passion, the climactic dance with death!”

“Dance with death?” Lucifer said. Ella stood up and turned heel dramatically. 

“See that dress she’s wearing? It’s the kind you would wear for ballroom dancing. And when the police arrived, this record was playing.” She walked over to a record player on a side table and set the needle. A slow, old fashioned song crackled out of the speakers. 

“‘At Last’? I agree, very dramatic.” Lucifer looked almost impressed.

“And look at this.” Ella stepped over to the body and gently lifted her up by the shoulder to show her back. The stab wound was just under her left shoulder blade, dyeing the red dress a darker shade. Ella peeled the fabric away from the wound. “See that pattern of bruising? It’s like, a hilt. Like she was stabbed with a real, honest-to-goodness dagger.”

Lucifer leaned in to see. Chloe looked away, suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed by the smell of blood.

“No sign of forced entry, so the killer must have been someone she knew,” Chloe commented.

“A lover, maybe? Any leads?” Lucifer stood up.

“No, the only thing we’ve got to go on is her job, so I was thinking we could go there next,” said Chloe.

“Sounds like a plan, Detective, I’ll meet you there.”

And then he was off, like he was just itching to get to the next part of the case. Chloe watched him go. 

“...I guess we should get a better idea of her life. Ella, we’ll catch up with you later to see what forensics has found.” 

“Yeah, ok.” Ella said, already absorbed in some other detail.

 

 

When Chloe arrived at the community center, Lucifer was already there, leaning against his car and tapping at his phone. He only glanced up when he saw her.

“Ah, Detective, did you know this woman has no social media accounts? No instagram, no twitter, no barely updated facebook. I can’t even find friends mentioning her name online. Nothing attached to her name but this place’s list of instructors and a handful of dance videos.” 

“That is weird. Maybe she just didn’t like attention.”

“A dancer that doesn’t like attention?” he scoffed, pushing off the car to stride confidently towards the building. “Not likely.”

Chloe followed. He really did seem fine. A little hyper but not much more than he usually was. So why did she feel so uneasy?

They got in and Lucifer immediately flashed a smile at the man at the reception desk and asked to see the person in charge. The flustered receptionist made a quick call and they were soon met by the center’s director. Ms. Ward, a woman in casual-hippie clothes, smiled at them with the polite confusion of someone who’s not totally sure why they’ve been summoned. 

“Hello.” Her eyes flicked between them. “Are you here to inquire about our couple’s dance classes?”

“Why yes—”

“No,” to Lucifer, “No,” to the woman, “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

The woman’s smile faded as soon as she saw the badge. She led them, shell-shocked, back to her office, a small room with a small window and a small desk absolutely covered in papers stacked almost as tall at the ancient monitor. Chloe sat in the office’s only chair as Lucifer fiddled with the dusty knick knacks on top of the filing cabinets. Ms. Ward stammered through the few additional facts she had— Halley Bolide started working there several months ago after leaving a job at the Apollo Performing Arts Center, she was an excellent teacher, a bit of a homebody, and nobody knew anything about her life outside work.

“She was a very private person,” Ms. Ward assured. “She didn’t have any friends here but I wouldn’t say she had enemies… maybe a few people who didn’t like her…”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well,” Ms. Ward wrung her hands. “She didn’t really go in for hanging out after work or parties, and she didn’t do much to make friends here. But I’ve talked to her a lot over these past few months and I assure you she’s just… wary.”

Chloe shared a suspicious look with Lucifer, who paused in rearranging old plastic trophies. “Wary? About what?”

The woman made a face, like whatever gut feeling made her say wary wasn’t specific enough for her to say why. “Well maybe wary’s not the right word… shy, I suppose.” 

Chloe tapped her pen on her notebook. “Anyone in particular she was wary of?”

 

 

They left the office without much more information than they went in with. Chloe furrowed her brows at the dingy tiles.

“Well, that was certainly not that illuminating,” Lucifer remarked.

Chloe hummed in agreement. “Maybe we can talk to this guy she rejected, you can do your,” she wiggled her fingers, “Jedi mind trick thing, see if he had motive.”

“You mean my God-given gift of truth?” Lucifer stopped walking. Chloe went a few more steps before realizing he wasn’t behind her. “Which I have because I am the devil.” Chloe’s train of thought stuttered and nearly jumped its tracks. Lucifer was giving her a look she couldn’t place. She’d deal with it later. For now she just blew past the comment. Just Lucifer being Lucifer, nothing weird there. 

“Yeah, sure.” She kept going to the classroom they’d been directed to. Lucifer followed, a few steps behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok! so i have plot now. there is a plan, going forward. which is why its now taking so long, bc ive been scheming. maybe this is too short but theres... worse to come. thought id post something to let yall know im not dead and neither is this fic.
> 
> Also i rewatched some season 2 and 3 to figure out where this fit in to the timeline and it rly is a pretty slim window... so we're just gonna say fuck canon and also fuck pierce so its fine. time line who? i dont know her
> 
> The best way to get me to write more is to leave a comment or bother me on tumblr, its the number one way to make me go "oh yeah that" even tho im always low key thinkin abt it. 
> 
> Anyway, luv u babes, come bully me into writing at prince-hamlet.tumblr.com


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